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Everyone in the Solid ecosystem can store any piece of they data they produce wherever they want. So while my comment on your photo is stored in my pod, your photo is stored in your pod. However, this means that we need a way for connecting the data in different pods together, such that the connection between my comment and your photo can be identified.

Solid connects resources in different pods by representing all data as Linked Data. At its core, Linked Data is really simple: every piece of data gets its own HTTP URL on the Web, and we use those URLs to refer to those them. So if your photo is identified by https://yourpod.solid/photos/beach, then my comment at https://mypod.solid/comments/36756 will link back to that URL.

The interesting thing about links within Linked Data, is that those links are typed. So we explicitly say how my comment and your photo are related. For example, we can say:

So the target of my comment is your photo. These link types don’t have to be invented: many of them already exist, and by reusing them, we ensure that in Solid different clients and apps can reuse the same data. In this case, we reused a link type from the Web Annotation Ontology.

This is all the background about Linked Data you need to get started with Solid. If you want to know more, check out this interactive slide deck.